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Date: 11/10/2021
WESTERN MASS. – Over the course of the past six-plus months, the Massachusetts Legislature’s Joint Committee on Public Health’s Racial Inequities in Maternal Health Commission, co-chaired by state Sen. Jo Comerford and State Rep. Marjorie Decker, have conducted three out of four listening sessions to receive testimony from around the state about racial inequities in maternal health.
The goal of these sessions, the third one having been on Oct. 25, is to hear from residents about their personal and professional experience with these issues with the hope of submitting a list of recommendations to legislatures within the next few months for something to be implemented in the following year.
The Racial Inequities in Maternal Health Commission was formed early in 2021 after the passage of a bill titled, “An Act to Reduce Racial Disparities in Maternal Health,” which created this commission relative to reducing racial disparities in maternal death within the office of health equity. The bill was sponsored by Rep. Kay Kahn of Newton and Rep. Liz Miranda of Boston. The commission additionally seeks to assess research and data regarding maternal health and the extent to which racism and other discriminatory factors affect maternal health.
Reminder Publishing reported information from the first listening session in June, when Hafsatou Diop, one of the commissioners and the director of the Division of Maternal and Child Health Research and Analysis with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, gave a presentation detailing the inequities in maternal care based on race. During that meeting, Diop explained that Black women are far more likely to be at risk to pregnancy complications under the umbrella of Severe Maternal Morbidity (SMM).
According to Audra Meadows, a medical and health equity consultant and co-leader of the Massachusetts State Perinatal Quality Collaborative (PNQIN), pregnancy-related deaths are increasing in Massachusetts between he period of 1998 and 2019. When it comes to SMM, which refers to severe or life-threatening illness during pregnancy, Meadows stated that it is 50 to 100 times more common than maternal death, and racial/ethnic inequities in SMM exist with Black women having a 70 percent greater risk of SMM.
Additionally, a Pregnancy Risk Assessment Survey conducted each year confirmed that Black birthing mothers experience much higher levels of stress related to race or racism compared to white individuals.
The commission currently has four standing committees including, the Core Working Group, Family and Community and Engagement, Healthcare Systems and Public Health Infrastructure. Each group has their own responsibilities for gathering information about racial inequities and discrimination throughout the state. During the third listening session on Oct. 25 for example, Miranda said that the Family and Community Engagement Group is responsible for discussing doula support, birthing centers, and community health workers, as well as what are some community barriers to community care look like-especially regarding racism. Discussions around where federal funds can be utilized for doula support and birthing centers are also being conducted with Comerford.
“The listening sessions are meant to really give a personal narrative to the statistics,” said Comerford, regarding her reaction to these listening sessions so far. “And they’re also meant to give nuance to numbers that don’t give nuance. Every listening session, the urgency for delivering an effective strategic set of recommendations grows because it’s such an acute issue, and there’s so much we have to do.”
With a couple more months of meetings and public listening sessions set to take place over the next few weeks, Comerford said that she did not want to state specific recommendations for addressing this issue yet, but she did say that there are already numerous areas where the Massachusetts healthcare system has failed when it comes to birthing people of color.
According to Comerford, the first listening session involved individuals from Western Massachusetts, the second provided lived experiences from Boston individuals and the third specifically involved individuals from Metrowest and Central Massachusetts. The final one will include individuals from the North and South Shore, as well as the Cape and islands. That meeting will occur Nov. 15.
“I think everyday we get a clearer picture of realities of people of color in the Commonwealth,” said Comerford. “And every day, there are more ideas of what we can and should do as the state.”
The Massachusetts law states that recommendations for any changes in legislation must be submitted by March, but the commission wants them to be submitted earlier than that. They are currently working on an earlier date due to the urgency of the issue.
“I think it’s only the real responsible thing to do coming out of COVID is really looking deeply at the existing disparities in health care,” said Comerford. “We have inequities in our system, and therefore, people in our communities have come to experience these inequitable outcomes. To see that Black women are three times more likely to experience [SMM] in Massachusetts in 2021 … it is just unthinkable.”
People looking to watch the third listening session and others from the commission can do so at https://malegislature.gov/Events/Hearings/Detail/4030.